Two years ago I dove into native app development on Apple devices. It’s been an adventure, but it feels like I’m finding a rhythm. Den v1.9.2 is the best release yet. The big news is that I’ve finally solved the image handling issues. I have no idea how I missed the plethora of open source libraries out there, or why I went down the road of handling image download/scaling/caching myself, but I do apologize. Now Den uses Kingfisher for images and works much better for it.
Looking to the future of the project. I feel like Apple has broken me down and built me back up like a drill sargent might crack a new recruit. Now having a grip on the basics, I’m ready to dive into more exciting feature development. Trends powered by natural language processing, AI powered recommendations, and a browser extension are a few of the larger features in the works.
In summary, Den has been a bigger effort than I originally anticipated, but along the way I’ve also come to understand the unexpected depth and detail that goes into native apps. Development is continuing on a more chill path now that the core app experience is in a good spot.